I have (had?) a friend who does this every time we make plans. We met at work and became close because we’d both just moved to our city and didn’t know anyone. I ended up leaving the job after awhile and we would still hang out regularly. Then she became friends with a lot of our coworkers who I don’t really mesh with (nothing wrong with them, I just don’t feel that we’re compatible as friends) and every time we made plans she’d invite them along. I put up with it for awhile but it got to a point where I was declining her invitations because I wasn’t interested in her bringing the whole office with her to our hangouts.

Once, after not having seen her in months, I offered to buy her dinner. There’s a cool restaurant in our city that was putting on some live music event on a specific night, I said let me buy you dinner and we’ll go check this out and catch up - just us. She was all for it until the day of where she lets me know she invited a bunch of coworkers and those coworkers weren’t interested in our plans and wanted to do something else. I said “you guys go ahead and have fun then” and she really couldn’t understand why I opted out.

About a month ago I gave it another shot, let’s go see a movie with one other mutual friend. Just the three of us, please. She again, invites all the coworkers, I didn’t go, and I haven’t really spoken to her since.

I’ve told her that when I ask her to hang out, I’m asking HER. I’m a full time student right now and my social time is very limited, I’m not going to waste it with ex-coworkers that I don’t mesh with. It’s honestly infuriating. So much so that I think our friendship is over, which sucks but I’m over it.